I’ m not trying to be alarmist, but the more I watch about the events in New Orleans the more I am concerned we are about to see the worst outbreak of cholera in the U.S. since 1911. I read this and it seems most of the conditions are being met for something very unpleasent. Please tell me I am overreacting.
You’re overreacting. Having lived through hurricanes myself I can tell you, everyone is advised to boil their drinking water for at least 3 minutes, or you can kill any germs or bacteria by using (I think) a tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water. So you won’t have people drinking contaminated water and getting cholera. Although I guess it could be a problem if they start eating raw crawfish.
Curiously enough, right after reading this thread I found this:
That’s way too much, enough to clean a kitchen sink! See here for the proper amount.
You first.
According to todays Washington Post, such an outbreak is unlikely. The cholera microbe isn’t found much outside of Third World countries, and similar experiences with other hurricanes have shown that an epidemic isn’t likely to happen.
plnnr, that’s the link I posted in #3 above.
I would be more worried about dysentery.
I believe cholera also requires a fairly concentrated high population to spread rapidly.
Right now, I don’t think New Orleans would be described as a “concentrated high population” area. And probably not for a while to come.
Interesting. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt seems to be concerned:
Well, when you’ve got 10,000 people concentrated into the area of the Superdome, that’s fairly concentrated. Also the evacuee/refugee camps are going to be pretty concentrated centers of population (although not permanent, like a city would be).
There’s probably not too much to worry about if the public health services do their job and the populace follows their advice. It wise to keep in mind that something might go wrong; although goodness knows enough has already gone wrong for that city. 
Hardly – the Superdome is designed with a normal capacity of 72,000 (not even counting the field area). So it’s really only at one-seventh of it’s normal population.
And it has sanitary washrooms and kitchens designed to handle that capacity. Plus a small amount of built in locker rooms with shower facilities & first-aid stations. (Though the failure of utilities, water systems, etc. might make these non-functional before too long.)
But I agree with you that there probably isn’t too much to worry about here.
The public health authorities are already working at this, and issuing warnings & instructions to people. And people seem to be mostly sensible, and following these guidelines.
The CNN lead story is now about the fear of cholera, typhoid, and other dehydrating diseases brought on by all those bodies in the water:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.impact/index.html
Right. I’ll just put my pan of water on the stove and wait 6 weeks for the utilities to come back up so the stuff will heat up. :smack: No, folks’ll be getting sick from the water. Maybe not cholera per se, but some kind of nasty swamp illness. Or they’ll just get sick from dehydration & exposure. I don’t see a lot of elderly folks getting through this if they didn’t leave town.
Y’know, if they don’t drain that town soon there’s gonna be some mosquitos flying about. Is malaria a concern? I think in the Americas it’s mostly restricted to Brazil, but could the storm have picked up some hot mosquitoes and spread them around a little? And I bet the gators are going to be feeding like it’s Thanksgiving.
They’re already non-functional…
Not to mention that it’s meant to hold that capacity for hours at a time, not days. I strongly suspect the people there would consider it close quarters.
It’s designed for 72K to see a game for a few hours, not for 72K to LIVE THERE, fer chrissakes. “Normal population”!?
You know, some people do have generators, not to mention grills to use for cooking. I can’t imagine that putting a pot of water on a grill would be the most efficient way to boil water, but it works.
Not when everythings soppin’ wet from rain & humidity! And where’s the diesel, Ace? And most of the generators? MMMmmmmmmmaybe under 20 feet of nasty water? Even the hospitals are having to send out scrounges for generator fuel to keep the life support gear going.
No, I’m thinking the locals are pretty well screwed barring a massive invas…I mean, evacuation.